Suit Won't

Snuff Out

State Effort

TALLAHASSEE — A lawsuit by cigarette maker Philip Morris will not blunt state efforts to recover $1.2 billion from the tobacco industry for Medicaid costs blamed on smoking, officials said on Tuesday.

A lawyer for the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration said the state plans to file suit against the tobacco industry "within the month of July" under what is considered the nation's toughest anti-tobacco law.

"We have not deviated from our game plan," said Harold Lewis, the agency's general counsel.

The measure allows the state to go after tobacco companies for repayment of the cost to taxpayers for treating the smoking-related illnesses of thousands of Medicaid patients over the past five years.

The law, which took effect July 1, is itself the subject of a lawsuit - filed last week by Philip Morris, Publix Supermarkets, the National Association of Convenience Stores and Associated Industries of Florida.

Those organizations claim the new law is unconstitutional and can be used against scores of businesses - not just cigarette manufacturers.

"This is a bad law that's going to have a bad impact on our state," said Jon Shebel, president of AIF, the state's largest business lobby.

Ron Sachs, a spokesman for Gov. Chiles, said the lawsuit has not clouded the state's plan to seek Medicaid costs tied to smoking, which state officials estimate at $1.2 billion since 1989.

"The governor has directed that the state's lawsuit be researched, prepared and pursued," Sachs said. "The suit will be filed in a timely fashion."

According to Philip Morris and other plaintiffs, the tobacco liability law is unconstitutional because it strips the industry of several key legal defenses.

The law prohibits tobacco companies from arguing that smokers knew the risks of smoking, removing the most common defense used by the industry against individual lawsuits.

The state also could sue cigarette manufacturers on behalf of all smokers on Medicaid, rather than filing individual lawsuits for every affected patient.

Lakeland-based Publix Supermarkets and the convenience store association, based in Virginia, fear being named in similar state lawsuits if products sold from their shelves are found harmful for some reason.

An effort to repeal the law during the Legislature's June special session on health care fell short, but Shebel said he was still hopeful that it might be removed from the books.